Project

Router

Location

Philadelphia, PA USA

Date

December 2001

Category

Architecture, Berreth Studio, Display, Interface, Speculative

About This Project

Router is a speculative project which explores the concept of building as display and transformational lens. The program involves creating a campus information center at the boundary of two adjoining universities — the architectural form becomes a virtual articulation of the boundary itself, and serves as a reflective and refractive surface, broadcasting the media landscape of each respective campus to the other, creating a hybrid combination of both.

The project inserts a series of kiosks and contact points throughout both campuses, which feed campus media and data to the Campus Information Center. A generative software engine recombinately synthesizes and displays the media objects across a number of large-scale OLED displays, incorporated into the sculptural exterior wall panels of the building. Simultaneously, it broadcasts the processed media back to the kiosks and out to the broader community.

Imagine a process of transformation, from physically and logically separate bodies, to physically and logically unified bodies.

A sub-text of the project is questioning the nature of boundaries. The American poet Robert Frost, looked at human relationships in his poem Mending Wall. He weighed the impulse to build boundaries, echoing the saying “good fences make good neighbors”, with his rebuttal that building walls has its cost. The project explores the prospect of a shared life inside of the wall.